Mises Daily

When individuals are not owners of resources, they are not able to assess their value; and when resources are publicly owned, their use will be systematically hasty and imprudent. When we realize that public ownership leads to systematic haste and imprudence, we get a hint that the inability of assessing the value of resources has deleterious consequences for most of us, with no one to blame except perhaps those who insist on keeping the institution of public ownership in force.

One's chance of winning a top prize in one of the rigged state lotteries is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero. In California's feverish drive to take more money from a citizenry that is already overtaxed, officials are looking for an even better bet for the state: selling tickets to games that have already been decided.

The energy problems that plague this country are government created. From restrictions on drilling to U.S. foreign policy blunders, the government has been a veritable "bull in a china shop" when it comes to energy policy. Another  layer of political action, even when suggested by "free-market economists," will not solve our problems.

Through it all, the libertarian theme was the same: liberty for everyone, legal privileges for no one. This is the essence of a free market, but even today it is a message that no faction within the apparatus of the ruling class wants to hear. No matter how divided the factions are among themselves, they form a united front against the libertarian idea, which is the one thing they find most intolerable.

Debt is great on the way up. You buy a house or buy stocks and they rise and your debt stays the same, accruing as it does some interest rate that is well below the rate of your advancing stocks and appreciating home. But when prices fall, debt becomes a very cruel master. 

The fact that Carlo Ponzi's investment scheme lasted less than a year--while the government's "Ponzi scheme" has lasted, through good times and bad, for more than half a century--only suggests that Ponzi should have applied his talents as a politician, where he could've fleeced his victims legally.

Contrary to expectations, the historic transition from absolute monarchies to democratic states did not represent a leap forward for liberty. The popular vote in the twentieth century, and the centralization of power it has generated, has been the fountainhead of democratic, international, and national socialism. Hans Hoppe introduces his new book.

Now that the economy is in a slump, many of the workers who gave up their welfare benefits are finding themselves without a job.  Many of the industries that were most likely to hire former welfare recipients have been those worst affected by the recession. These workers are finding that they have no legal right to a resumption of welfare payments because the disgraceful Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was abolished.

It's remarkable to think that when the Word was made flesh with the birth of Jesus, it was through the intercessory work of a private businessman. Without his assistance, the story would have been very different indeed. People complain about the "commercialization" of Christmas, but clearly commerce was there from the beginning, playing an essential and laudable role.

Since it takes some time to say for sure that we are in recession, by the time we know we are in recession, we are already most of the way through it. This time, it took eight months--from March until November 2001--to determine we were in a recession. Here we are, in December 2001, and there are some signs that we may soon start to recover.